Main Character Energy
Jul 30, 2024
Is it all just one big show?
Surly you have heard the new vocabulary floating around on instagram: ‘main character’ energy. I love this term because you should be the main character of your life AND there is lot more truth in this term that simply just another instagram word that began to trend.
One might wonder if we're all unwitting stars of our own version of "The Truman Show," where the lines between authenticity and exhibitionism are increasingly blurred. The premise of the iconic film—where the protagonist lives his life in an artificial bubble watched by an invisible audience—resonates deeply with the dynamics of modern social media usage.
The parallels between "The Truman Show" and our current societal dynamics with social media are strikingly relevant. In the film, Truman's life, unbeknownst to him, is a fabricated reality, constantly monitored and manipulated for entertainment. This mirrors how social media often leads us to curate and perform aspects of our lives for an online audience, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.
Stage-Managed Lives: Like Truman, many of us unknowingly cultivate a stage-managed version of our lives on social media, selectively sharing moments to craft a particular narrative or image. Much like Truman Burbank's seemingly idyllic but entirely scripted existence, our online profiles can become stage-managed exhibits. We prune and groom our digital presences, often subconsciously, to fit into a storyline that will appeal to our followers, or what we imagine they expect of us.
The Audience Effect: Just as Truman's actions are influenced by his unseen audience, social media users often modify their behavior based on perceived audience expectations, leading to a performative aspect in everyday life. Every post, like, and share is a line in the script of our social media personas AKA our Digital Souls, tailored for an audience whose gaze we can feel, if not see. It’s an audience that shapes our actions just as the off-screen viewers influenced Truman’s world. As we cater to this audience, our real lives and digital performances intertwine until the distinction becomes as hazy as a carefully filtered photo.
Idealized self
The impact of social media on the digital soul l identity and self-perception is a critical issue, The pursuit of likes and followers on social media platforms profoundly shapes one's digital soul and transcends self perception of one's real world self.
It's not abnormal for one to measure their value based on the quantity of online validation they receive, which can lead to a distorted sense of self. I relentlessly hustle on instagram and often document my growth on the platforms as i closed my real world business and instagram literally is my business - thus driving traffic is essential AND that's all it is, business traffic. No different than when I had a bricks and mortar commercial real estate office. It's easy to view your online following as community and twist up your self worth in it but in reality if your page is your actually friends and family, it is going to be a small number, anyones would, and if you are on there to grow a business, know they are not your friends nor your family, yes, your following can feel like community but at the end of the day they will come and go, some will fall in love with you then fall out of love with you, or fall off if you land change in content offered AND that;s just business. Your follow count and analytics can let you know if your ‘business’ online is thriving but they do not dictate if you as a human are thriving. Ultimately at the end of the day they are business contacts, they arent your best friends and no different than if you had a job that you were serving at a restaurant. you're not ranking your value based on the people you served dinner too, this distinction is important when growing on insta. Growth is important for business gains and business development, growth is not important to validate yourself and your self love or determination of your self worth.
If you mix these two up you can fall into the trap of getting sucked into being ‘The Idealized Self.’
There's an intense pressure to present an idealized image to the world to please others which can create a disconnect between one's true self and their digital soul AKA online persona. This discrepancy can lead to issues of authenticity and authenticity-related stress. No one is perfect, nor should you want to be, your aim in life is to be in alignment with who you are and what you decide you want to be, it is not to be perfect.
Equating social media validation with personal value can have serious psychological implications, including heightened anxiety, lowered self-esteem, and identity confusion. Identity confusion is a natural byproduct of social media platforms when you fragment yourself into multiple versions, it has already happened to everyone as you are about to learn, thus you want to guard against it happening more than it has to.
This new reality calls into question the foundation of our personal narratives: Are we living our true lives, or are we adapting our stories for mass consumption?
By drawing these "Truman Show" parallels, we can begin to dissect the role of social media in our lives. Is it merely a platform for connection and expression, or has it morphed into a theater where authenticity is compromised for applause? The answers may lie in how we choose to engage with these digital stages—whether as genuine participants or as performers enacting a part, day after day, post after post.
